The second annual Cedar Crest Invitational was held Saturday at Parkland High School.

The event, organized by Emmaus head coach Tim O’Connor and Parkland head coach Rob Robitaille, brings six other schools in for opening day of the varsity swimming and diving season. The event doesn’t track points and has no consideration in any season standings, but it does give the swimmers an opportunity to gauge where they are at the start of the season.

“I think it was a great meet,” said O’Connor. “Rob and I just thought that if we brought some of these teams in and gave our kids the opportunity to swim competitively before we get into our regular meets, it would be a great thing. I think the kids get to see how they stack up and it sort of gets them prepared for the real competition that’s going to come.”

In addition to Emmaus and Parkland, the competition included teams from Central Catholic, Freedom, Governor Mifflin, Hatboro-Horsham, Nazareth, Southern Lehigh and Wyoming Valley West. Governor Mifflin and Hatboro-Horsham were added to the event this season. In all, somewhere in the neighborhood of 340 swimmers competed.

Since the points weren’t tabulated and there was no team competition, coaches took different approaches to the event and how they encouraged their swimmers to go into their events.

“For us, it’s just about getting our swimmers ready,” said O’Connor. “We want them to be able to compete and this was something like a scrimmage where you go out there and you compete, but you’re also really stressing working on those little things that are going to make you better down the road.

“I thought that a lot of our swimmers did great today and came away happy with where they’re at going into the season. For our new swimmers, this was an introduction and a chance to swim against some pretty good competition from other schools and just prepare.”

Emmaus is looking for more consistency this season even though its girls went 10-1 last season and the boys completed a perfect 11-0 season en route to their 12th straight conference title and their ninth straight district title. District champions Connor DeJohn and Ethan Carr had good showings as a tune-up for the regular season.

“For our swimmers who have more experience, this was just a chance to get out there and get into a different frame of mind,” said O’Connor. “It’s always a little different when you’re swimming against your teammates than when you get into a situation like this, and it will be a little different still when you get into the season schedule.”